Markle clocks up another break with royal tradition
BRITAIN: Meghan Markle will join the royal family for Christmas at Sandringham in yet another break with tradition for a woman who is the first mixed-race American divorcee to marry into the royal family.
The actress will also be the first royal fiancee to open presents with the Queen on December 24, before she officially becomes a member of the royal family. The holiday festivities will include a black-tie dinner, a full English breakfast and a pheasant shoot.
Markle, 36, and Prince Harry, 33, will marry at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, in May next year although they have not decided on the exact date. It is understood that Harry asked the Queen to make an exception for Markle over Christmas. She relocated last month from Toronto, her home for the past seven years, to London shortly before the couple announced their engagement last week.
The move signals how fully Markle has been welcomed into the royal family after her 16-month romance with the fifth (soon to be sixth) in line to the throne. Kate Middleton was not invited to spend Christmas at Sandringham after her engagement to Prince William in November 2010. Instead she joined her parents at their home in Berkshire.
Harry and Meghan are expected to join the Queen from Christmas Eve until Boxing Day, before holidaying abroad for the new year. They are also understood to be planning to join Meghan’s mother Doria Ragland in California for part of the time. A friend of Harry’s said: ‘‘Now they are engaged it was unthinkable that they would be apart for Christmas. The royal family have fully welcomed Meghan into the fold.’’
It is thought the couple may stay with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and their two children at Anmer Hall on the Sandringham estate, joining the Queen and other members of the royal family each day. The family traditionally gathers on Christmas Eve for tea with the Queen, before the younger members are encouraged to put the finishing touches to the Christmas tree in the white drawing room. Later the Queen’s guests exchange gifts before a formal black-tie dinner. On Christmas morning, after a full English breakfast, the royal family attend St Mary Magdalene Church on the estate, before returning to Sandringham House for Christmas lunch. Guests then gather to watch the Queen’s Christmas broadcast to the nation at 3pm, which this year is expected to see her offer congratulations to Harry and his future bride.
On Boxing Day, guests traditionally take part in a pheasant shoot on the 20,000-acre estate, although Markle, who is thought to be opposed to blood sports, is unlikely to join in.
It has not taken long for the socalled friends of Markle to emerge from the American actress’s past, offering photo albums and nasty tales of the woman now betrothed to a British prince - and picking up big cheques from the Daily Mail.
The maid of honour at Markle’s first wedding turned up yesterday with what was described as a ‘‘brutally honest’’ account of Markle’s life before Prince Harry.
Ninaki Priddy, who has known Markle since she was two, has also provided the tabloid with dozens of photographs from a friendship that had lasted more than 25 years before the pair fell out.
There is nothing seriously damaging in her account, but Priddy makes clear that she blames Markle for divorcing her first husband, Trevor Engelson, only two years after she married him in Jamaica in 2011.
Priddy said the split ‘‘ended my friendship with Meghan’’.
Whether Engelson intends to do the next kiss-and-tell remains to be seen.
He is reported to be working on a pilot episode for a proposed television series involving an American divorcee who falls for a British prince. It is a fictional project, of course. - Sunday Times